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Call Me
About the book:
There are a few rare women who see one-hundred times as many colors as the rest of us: not just more shades of color, more colors—colors for which there are no names.
At just eleven years old, Karen is hiding a dark secret. She cannot see colors like everybody else. Her father takes her to an art show and, while everybody else sees the paintings as wildly colorful abstracts, to Karen, it is the first time she has ever seen anything that looks real. Hidden in the sky of one particular painting are the words CALL ME but only Karen can see them. She breaks down in tears when she realizes that she is not the only one. There is another girl like her.
Quotes:
“Wow! Can you teach me how to do that?”
“It feels so good not to be the only one.”
“I’ve got my own damn X-ray machine.”
Excerpt:
She said, “I’ve been thinking about this for years. Each kind of cone perceives about a hundred shades. My cat Elvis has two kinds of cones—yellow and blue—so he can see about ten thousand colors, a hundred times a hundred. Normal people have three kinds of cones, so they can see about a million colors. Karen and I have four kinds of cones. We can see a hundred million colors—a hundred times as many as most people.”
Jack appeared awestruck at the thought of seeing so many colors. “Can the human mind process that much information?”
Susan said, “Birds have four kinds of cones, so do most insects, and they do okay.”
“What about colors like yellow? When the red and green cones are stimulated, we see yellow. That’s why it lies between red and green in a rainbow, but there is no yellow wavelength. It’s just our mental perception of red and green light combined.”
Karen had a French fry hanging out of her mouth. It dropped onto her plate.
“Dad, that’s what I was trying to tell you!” She looked at Susan and asked, “Those colors everybody says are yellow, but they’re not, did you give them names?”
Susan felt her heart skip a beat. Karen’s eyes truly were like her own. “I named some of them, like hope. Miri’s painting really captured that one.”
Karen almost jumped out of her chair. “It did! That was the first one I saw!”
There are a few rare women who see one-hundred times as many colors as the rest of us: not just more shades of color, more colors—colors for which there are no names.
At just eleven years old, Karen is hiding a dark secret. She cannot see colors like everybody else. Her father takes her to an art show and, while everybody else sees the paintings as wildly colorful abstracts, to Karen, it is the first time she has ever seen anything that looks real. Hidden in the sky of one particular painting are the words CALL ME but only Karen can see them. She breaks down in tears when she realizes that she is not the only one. There is another girl like her.
Quotes:
“Wow! Can you teach me how to do that?”
“It feels so good not to be the only one.”
“I’ve got my own damn X-ray machine.”
Excerpt:
She said, “I’ve been thinking about this for years. Each kind of cone perceives about a hundred shades. My cat Elvis has two kinds of cones—yellow and blue—so he can see about ten thousand colors, a hundred times a hundred. Normal people have three kinds of cones, so they can see about a million colors. Karen and I have four kinds of cones. We can see a hundred million colors—a hundred times as many as most people.”
Jack appeared awestruck at the thought of seeing so many colors. “Can the human mind process that much information?”
Susan said, “Birds have four kinds of cones, so do most insects, and they do okay.”
“What about colors like yellow? When the red and green cones are stimulated, we see yellow. That’s why it lies between red and green in a rainbow, but there is no yellow wavelength. It’s just our mental perception of red and green light combined.”
Karen had a French fry hanging out of her mouth. It dropped onto her plate.
“Dad, that’s what I was trying to tell you!” She looked at Susan and asked, “Those colors everybody says are yellow, but they’re not, did you give them names?”
Susan felt her heart skip a beat. Karen’s eyes truly were like her own. “I named some of them, like hope. Miri’s painting really captured that one.”
Karen almost jumped out of her chair. “It did! That was the first one I saw!”
ebook
First published June 23, 2015
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 21, 2017
A girl who sees more colours in normal life than anyone else, goes to an art exhibition and sees that the female artist hid the words 'call me' in one of her paintings. This is on the principle of a field of multi-coloured dots with shapes hidden in certain colours. Only one other woman has ever seen the words, and the girl and her lone parent father are put in touch. This lady works as a vet and as well as small animals, attends a nearby racetrack in Illinois. But she is shy and solitary, wearing violet-tinged glasses to cut down on the colour she sees, as she picks up human emotions.
The setting is 1960s and this may make it a little better that the racetrack hosts vile men determined to make money from horses at any cost. The vet is known to be excellent at diagnosis and spotting the effects of drugs or snake venom, so she becomes a target. We are clearly shown that these are not good men nor approved of by racing society. I would have given the tale better marks if it wasn't so graphic about harming horses. To balance that, we see two retired Thoroughbreds kept as pets.
I like the approach taken by the author that some people may have extra cones in their eyes capable of seeing an extra colour, as we are told birds and insects do. This is not treated by him as a sensory processing disorder but as one related to inherited colour blindness. A character explains that the red cone is on the X chromosome so men only inherit one, which may be slightly faulty. This is why men are more likely to have red-green or shades of orange and red colour blindness. We also learn that yellow is caused by seeing with red and green cones, so yellow is between red and green in the spectrum, though there is no yellow wavelength. The science aspect - set when colour TV is brand new - is why I am calling this SF although mainly it is a suspense story. And a romance. I don't recommend the tale for young adults due to the level of violence. Also the author sometimes has trouble with tenses, never using past perfect and sometimes confusing present with past, though this may have been corrected.
I was sent an ARC. This is an unbiased review.
The setting is 1960s and this may make it a little better that the racetrack hosts vile men determined to make money from horses at any cost. The vet is known to be excellent at diagnosis and spotting the effects of drugs or snake venom, so she becomes a target. We are clearly shown that these are not good men nor approved of by racing society. I would have given the tale better marks if it wasn't so graphic about harming horses. To balance that, we see two retired Thoroughbreds kept as pets.
I like the approach taken by the author that some people may have extra cones in their eyes capable of seeing an extra colour, as we are told birds and insects do. This is not treated by him as a sensory processing disorder but as one related to inherited colour blindness. A character explains that the red cone is on the X chromosome so men only inherit one, which may be slightly faulty. This is why men are more likely to have red-green or shades of orange and red colour blindness. We also learn that yellow is caused by seeing with red and green cones, so yellow is between red and green in the spectrum, though there is no yellow wavelength. The science aspect - set when colour TV is brand new - is why I am calling this SF although mainly it is a suspense story. And a romance. I don't recommend the tale for young adults due to the level of violence. Also the author sometimes has trouble with tenses, never using past perfect and sometimes confusing present with past, though this may have been corrected.
I was sent an ARC. This is an unbiased review.
Displaying 1 of 1 review